The present invention relates to a showcase including a chamber having a plurality of open surfaces, more particularly to a shelf device installed in the chamber.
Heretofore, a showcase including shelves in a chamber having a plurality of open surfaces, for example, two to four open surfaces has been used in displaying refrigerated foods, fresh foods and the like in a store such as a supermarket. In such a showcase, a vertical structure including ducts is usually disposed on a base including a cooling device, and back plates are attached to four surfaces of the vertical structure. Moreover, display shelves are installed on the four surfaces of this vertical structure. These display shelves are detachably attached to the back plates, and supported at an adjustable angle by shelf support members extending in a depth direction.
When the display shelf is disposed in a corner portion, an end side of the shelf on a corner portion side is formed into an inclined plane shape. A side flange of one display shelf on an inclined side is butted with a side flange of another display shelf on the inclined side. Moreover, the side flanges constituting the display shelves are held by the shelf support members which support the display shelves from below. One place of each flange closer to a distal end than to the center is held and fixed by a bolt and a nut from opposite sides.
However, according to such a shelf constitution, an operation of fixing the side flange of the shelf by use of a tool from the opposite side of the flange has to be performed under the shelf, and there has been a problem of a laborious operation. In view of operability, the fixing of the flanges by use of the bolts and the nuts is performed at the distal end of each shelf. Therefore, there are problems that a rear end of a shelf plate and a rear end of the shelf support member easily move upwards centering on the fixed portion as an axis and that the shelf support members fall from engagement holes formed in the back plates. If commodities on the shelf are mounted on a front part of the shelf plate in a concentrated manner, a load is concentrated on the distal end of the shelf plate, the rear end of the shelf plate therefore moves upwards, the shelf support member disengages from the engagement hole of the back plate, and the shelf support member falls together with the shelf.
To solve the problems, as disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-8799, a fixing method is developed in which superimposed portions bent in one direction are formed on the butted side flanges of the shelf plates, a superimposed portion bent in a similar direction is also formed at the distal end of the shelf support member sandwiched between the side flanges, and these superimposed portions are tightened with screws in a superimposed state.
However, in the above shelf fixing method, when the superimposed portion of the side flange of each shelf plate is simply superimposed on the superimposed portion of the shelf support member, each shelf plate is not stably held by the shelf support member, and the shelf plate is brought into an unstable state until both the shelf plate and the shelf support member are fixed via the screws. On the other hand, a side flange of the shelf plate to be fixed, which is positioned on an opposite side, also needs to be fixed to a side flange of another shelf plate. In a case where one flange is independently fixed, when the other flange is fixed, there is a disadvantage that the superimposed portions cannot be superimposed and that the flanges cannot be fixed. Therefore, a fixing operation has to be performed while butted portions of the shelves constituting all the corner portions are generally judged, and there is a problem that the operation becomes laborious.
Moreover, shapes of the shelves of the corner portions are formed so that the side flanges of the shelf plates are butted to form the shelf corner portions. Therefore, a dimensional error is easily generated. During attaching, it is difficult to appropriately form the corner portions without generating any deviation.
Furthermore, a shelf decoration is attached to a front flange formed on each shelf plate. The decoration has a shelf plate decorating function, and a display card is attached to the decoration. On the display card, a price, a product name and the like of each displayed commodity are displayed. Moreover, a corner decoration positioned between the shelf decorations is attached to a distal end of a butted portion of the shelf constituting the corner portion.
However, the corner decoration is constituted so as to cover mutually butted end portions of adjacent shelf decorations, and the corner decoration is attached by inserting the corner decoration into the end portion of the shelf decoration. Therefore, when an operation to put the commodities on or away from the shelves is performed, there is a problem that an operator's sleeve or the like is caught by the corner decoration, and the decoration easily falls. There is also a problem that the corner decoration falls from the shelf decoration owing to an impact applied to the shelf decoration or the like.